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Why is government getting involved in gay Boy Scout dismissal issue?

By Neal McNamara | April 14, 2014

From the Friday edition of the Ben Shapiro Show.

Ed Murray, the mayor of Seattle, is getting himself in trouble. He’s getting himself in trouble because he’s doing something silly. He’s inserting himself in a controversy where he simply doesn’t belong. This is what so many folks do. They insert themselves in a controversy where they don’t belong. The mayor and the City Council expressed support for a Boy Scouts troop leader dismissed last month because he’s gay.

Geoff McGrath was this Boy Scout leader. He joined a Boy Scouts troop at the behest of a very liberal female pastor who suggested he create and lead a troop and then be openly gay as a way to challenge the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts are a private organization. They don’t get a dime of tax money. But that doesn’t matter. We now live in a country where you don’t have to get tax money in order for people to pressure you to change your position, in order for government actors to threaten action.

So, the Seattle City Council has now expressed support for Geoff McGrath, even though there are pictures of him at Boy Scout events waving around the gay flag. By the way, there’s nothing better for a 14-year-old than having a troop leader who’s standing around in the middle of the forest waving around a gay flag. Nothing says boy scouting quite like that.

The scouting organization has said that McGrath, 49, a software engineer and Eagle Scout, violated its leadership qualifications and deliberately included his sexuality in a scouting program, which is true – he talked about his sexuality openly with a bunch of teens and pre-teens, which is kind of gross. In a letter issued Wednesday, Murray and the City Council decided it was time to intervene.

It’s not enough for them to raise the minimum wage at the point of a gun, not enough for them to destroy the business climate in Seattle with new regulations on building. Now they’re going to get involved in shutting down organizations like the Boy Scouts that really do an awful lot of good work. Here’s the thing: you can believe that the Boy Scouts should allow gay scout leaders. That’s a rational and reasonable position, although it’s something with which I disagree. What I do not find rational is why government actors would get involved in this particular cause.

The Boy Scouts are founded on a basic moral code, that basic moral code is biblically based. So, in a sense, they’re a quasi-religious organization. So why exactly is the mayor getting himself involved here?

“It’s not a letter that makes demands or interferes with their own ability to decide; it’s a letter hopefully that will lead to them making changes,” Murray said.

OK, that’s a lie. The reason it’s a lie is because whenever a government sends you a letter, it’s not the same thing as if I send you a letter, or if some other dude sends you a letter. When the government or City Council sends you a letter and says you might want to change that policy – there’s an implicit threat. The implicit threat is, ‘Nice business there – be a shame if it burned down, wouldn’t it? It would be a shame if something terrible happened there, wouldn’t it?’

“I do need to give the City Council credit for initiating the letter, which I joined them on to state the city’s well-known position that this is a city of equality. This is a city that has to condemn any kind of discrimination, in this case against LGBT people,” Murray continued.

What he just said demonstrates the lie he told first. First, you hear him say that there’s not a threat here. So there’s no threat, there’s no demand except the city is saying you’re not welcome here. If so, I’m waiting for the City Council to go after every church in Seattle that doesn’t perform same-sex weddings on the basis of biblical morality.

Murray says that he was a Boy Scout at one point, which means that since he was a Boy Scout once, the entire Boy Scouts should change their entire policy with regard to homosexuals in leadership positions.

“When I was a Boy Scout, no one was gay. I wouldn’t have even mentioned if I was gay. It would’ve been incredibly shocking at that time to come out gay as anything – a politician, lawyer, garbage collector, much less a Boy Scout leader,” Murray said.

And now nobody cares. So why exactly do they feel it necessary to do it in front of a bunch of kids? Was Mayor Murray damaged? Did he suffer several mental anguish for not coming out as gay when he was in the Boy Scouts? Would he feel severe mental anguish in not being able to talk about his husband in front of a bunch of Boy Scouts in the middle of the woods? Where exactly is the case to be made that these kids are better off having gay scout leaders openly talking about their homosexuality?

The reality is, civic leaders don’t feel the necessity to write every single thing they think about. They don’t need to feel the necessity to write letters on all topics of public interest. They only get involved when they’re trying to threaten somebody.

Imam Anjem Choudary said Obama is “inventing” his own version of Islam to forward his foreign policy agenda.

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